The Road to CAPACITY BUILDING for IMPACT EVALUATION: A SHOWCASE from the MENA Region Cairo, Thursday April 2 nd 2009 Ziad Moussa Officer, Capacity Development and Outreach AUB – ESDU

Inspirational Picture

Why is the MENA Boat Going in Circles  Absence of an evaluation and accountability culture in the Region (the 99.9% syndrome in the “elections”, …)  M&E is seen as an imposed discipline:  Monitoring is mostly audit-based and the data is used to produce flashy “achievements” bulletins  Evaluation is carried externally, mostly by “foreigners”  Mastery of the English language (for the Mashreq) and the French language (for the Maghreb) is an essential pre-requisite for evaluators  Mastery of other flashy terms such as Dif in Dif, RBM, AI, MSC, OM et al makes a local evaluator fashionable but; We are still stuck at the SMART indicators era

More on going in circles The first workshop for MENA evaluators took place in Beirut in June 2007 and identified the following structural weaknesses of the M&E in MENA:  Weak stakeholder accountability and predominance of a hierarchical culture  Lack of traceable M&E history at the level of the Region due to the weak systems for generating indigenous M&E knowledge  Lack of awareness about the importance of M&E in improving program outcomes

Looking at the Bright Side

Recommendations of the June 2007 workshop  M&E in MENA should be promoted under its positive and appreciative dimensions (enough with formal and informal auditors)  Donor Influence is very important and crucial at this stage: LFA and RBM made their way because:  They were translated to ARABIC and;  Every development intervention includes a training or a train-the-trainers with LFA and/or RBM at its core  M&E efforts should seek synergies with initiatives aiming at improving public accountability  M&E practitioners need to gain credibility and momentum

Where are we from Impact? ESDU believes that – at least at this stage - it all trickles down to putput…

Putting “PutPut” at the Center  A 3 years on-going partnership with IDRC enabled us to start building momentum around Outcome Mapping  OM is used as a means and not an end and has triggered deeper reflection on the theory and practice of M&E  More than 50 individuals and institutions have taken so far part in the initiative  Half the attendees of the session are taking part in the MENA Evaluators meeting taking place in parallel to AfREA. We will hear from them shortly.

More on Putting “PutPut” at the Center  We learned our lesson and we are focusing on capacity development and knowledge management.  Special attention is being given to Regional specificity (MENA flies with 3 wings: Mashreq, Maghreb and Egypt_  Special attention is being given to “Contextualization” and “Arabization”. We started with Outcome Mapping, which has been baptized خريطة التأثيرات – التقييم بهدف التطوير

More on Putting “PutPut” at the Center  Three workshops were held so far in Beirut (May 2007) and Cairo (April 2008 and April 2009). We are also preparing a 3 years project on “Mainstreaming Evaluation Theory and Practice in the MENA Region” which will focus on:  Making the voice of MENA Evaluators heard (publishing, publishing and publishing…)  Capacity Development (OM but also other methodologies)  Networking and possibly establishing a professional body for evaluators in MENA  Possibly an international conference focused on evaluation in MENA

Are we having an IMPACT?  We believe that we are contributing to making Evaluation advance in MENA, yet we don’t attribute the effort solely to ourselves  Our primary focus is on changes in behaviors in our Boundary partners: Evaluation practitioners, researchers and decision makers in the evaluation field.  So far we have been blessed by not being pressured to show impact and we were actively assisted and supported to achieve our planned outcomes

Thank YOU